As part of the preparation of the first flight to the ISS with a mission for the delivery of fragile payload, the Dream Chaser spacecraft passed important tests. The device will be able to deliver cargo to the station in the airtight compartment, where normal pressure and temperature will be maintained. Also, this space aircraft will be able to deliver a useful load from the ISS to the ground with a landing on the runway, which will expand the range of transported objects, including more fragile ones.
In the cargo compartment of the cosmoplane. Image Source: Sierra Space
Sierra Space engineers, together with NASA experts, checked the ability of the Dream Chaser on -board equipment to interact with the payload in the cargo compartment and transmit information to the Dream Chaser Duplication in the NASA TsUP. The audit was carried out at the first three useful loads, which the Cosmoplane will deliver to the ISS as part of the DCC-1 first cargo mission.
The Dream Chaser on -board equipment removed readings from the payload and ensured the maintenance of the specified conditions for each of them – heating, cooling, changing the supply voltage within the right limits and modes. Data was transferred to the company’s flight management centers and NASA. It is alleged that the on -board equipment of the Cosmoplane successfully confirmed the ability to maintain the necessary modes of the payload, ensuring its safe delivery to the ISS.
It is probably about the delivery of scientific equipment to the station, as well as samples of living tissues or organisms. All these materials should be transported in optimal conditions in order to maintain their integrity. Samples, depending on their specifics, will be placed in the Polar cryogenic storage system, developed by the University of Alabama in Birmingham (it supports temperatures from -95 ° C to 10 ° C), in the Powered Assent Utility Locker system), which Space Tango, which is, which It provides samples for samples while traveling to space, as well as in the “Unified NASA luggage cabinet” – a standard storage system designed to conduct experiments and perform other tasks on board Dream Chaser.
Testing of the Coplanet glider
As for the first flight of the cosmoplane into space, its date has not yet been determined. Initially, the cosmoplane was supposed to go to orbit in October 2024 on the ULA Vulcan missile with a centaur accelerated unit, but it was not ready for the appointed day and the flight was postponed for an indefinite time. Probably Dream Chaser will fly into flight until the end of 2025.